Will Russian president Vladimir Putin use nuclear weapons in his war against Ukraine? Putin’s constant nuclear threats have made this one of the most critical questions hovering over the entire conflict. Are the threats a bluff designed to deter NATO efforts to support Ukraine, or are they serious warnings not to corner Putin that Ukraine and the West must heed? If Putin is truly willing to use nuclear weapons, then given the major political and military defeats he has endured, the real question may be why hasn’t Putin already ordered their use in Ukraine. The answer may lie in America’s own experiences in the Korean War.
Even before the invasion, Putin employed nuclear threats to deter an unlikely NATO intervention in what he believed would be a quick and easy victory. Russia’s defeats at Kyiv and Kharkiv and Ukraine’s recent offensives into territories annexed by Russia—resulting in massive Russian casualties and a badly tarnished global image—have intensified fears that Putin may authorize a tactical nuclear attack to stave off a battlefield defeat. As if on cue, Putin immediately began threatening to use “all weapon systems available to us” to achieve victory. In response, the Biden administration has conveyed both publicly and privately that a tactical nuclear strike would result in a catastrophic U.S. response and risk global “Armageddon.”
Prior to the war, however, the type of setbacks Putin has already endured—on the battlefield, at home, and internationally—would themselves have been grounds for nuclear retaliation. These defeats have left Putin a shadow of his former self, with even his once-cowed allies inflicting indignities not thought possible just a year ago. With Putin’s legacy in ruins, his army in disarray, and his country in upheaval because of the disastrous mobilization, analysts need to consider why Putin hasn’t decided to use nuclear weapons. The likely answer, as the United States learned during the Cold War, is that employing nuclear weapons on the battlefield is far more difficult than it first appears.
